My aim is to offer insights into some of the more subtle principles underpinning prints. The commentary is based on thirty-eight years of teaching and the prints and other collectables that I am focusing on are those which I have acquired over the years.
In the galleries of prints (accessed by clicking the links immediately below) I am also adding fresh images offered for sale. If you get lost in the maze of links, simply click the "home" button to return to the blog discussions.

Condition: strong and well-printed impression on fine Japanese
paper laid onto a support sheet and re-margined with archival paper. The sheet has
restored breaks in the margins.

I am selling this exceptionally rare engraving, for the combined
total cost of AU$220 (currently US$174.40/EUR142.88/GBP127.04 at the time of
this listing) including postage and handling to anywhere in the world.

If you are interested this engraving executed in the niello manner,
please contact me (oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com) and I will send you a PayPal
invoice to make the payment easy.

This print has been sold

Before I discuss some of the problematic issues associated with
niello prints, let me first outline the medieval process of making nielli.

First, a piece of metal—usually silver that has been shaped for
functional purposes, such as a plate, candelabra or a similar object—is
engraved. Next, an inky black amalgam of metal, sulphur and borax is heated and
flooded into the engraved lines and the surplus ink (nigellum) is wiped/polished
away leaving the ink only in the lines. Finally the ink is allowed to cool/set
in the engraved lines.

The process that I have outlined creates a niello but this is not
the same as a niello print. A niello print is created in much the same way as a
traditional engraving, in the sense that before the nigellum is allowed to dry,
paper is rubbed onto the printing surface to “capture” the sticky amalgam to
create a niello print. Of course the difference between this manner of printing
and a traditional engraving is that here the printing plate is not rolled
through a press.

When examining niello prints such as this one the critical concern
is whether the plate, the ink and how the print was made matches the
description of the above process. Looking at this impression, for instance, I
believe that this impression is far too good to have been taken from a plate
without pressure, using the crude medieval ink. Accordingly, even though the
impression is taken from an original plate used to make niello prints this particular
impression is best described as a “niello manner” engraving.